Politics and money make poor bedfellows

In 2015, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille spearheaded the R1.5-billion development of Maiden’s Cove in Clifton. But her plans were tainted when it emerged that the developers were controversial businessperson Mark Willcox and property developer Tobie Mynhardt, who were De Lille’s acquaintances and apparent Democratic Alliance funders. Any undue influence she may have had over the deal was never proven, but questions about the mayor’s reasons for pursuing the project have haunted her ever since.

In a December 2015 letter, Truman Prince, thenBeaufort West mayor, wrote to the Construction Education Training Authority (Ceta), saying the ANC needed money for its local government election campaign. Writing on an official municipal letterhead and aiming to secure campaign funds, Prince said the ANC would like to see companies “sympathetic” to the party benefit from Ceta’s planned projects.

Newly elected DA Western Cape leader Bonginkosi Madikizela last month admitted that his birthday party at a swanky five-star hotel in Cape Town was paid for by one of his friends, who is a building contractor. The registrar of the Western Cape legislature found that Madikizela had “improperly placed the norm between him and his friends (regarding gifts) above the duty-bound obligation visited upon him by the prescripts of the code of conduct”. But Premier Helen Zille defended Madikizela and said the contractor had not improperly benefited from government contracts because of the donation.

Before the 2016 local government elections, business tycoon Robert Gumede donated R7.5-million and 12 vehicles to the ANC for its election campaign in Mpumalanga. The province’s premier, David Mabuza, also used an ANC-branded helicopter to visit four regions in one day, at a reported cost of R500 000.